These are Fighting Words of a Fighting Dem standing up for Troops the way only Democrats Can! Pay Attention Eventual Nominee, whoever you may be. Jim's leading the charge!
"There are fundamental differences," McCain told Politico. "[Webb's GI Bill] creates a new bureaucracy and new rules. His bill offers the same benefits whether you stay three years or longer. We want to have a sliding scale to increase retention. I haven’t been in Washington, but my staff there said that his has not been eager to negotiate."
"He’s so full of it," Webb said in response. "I have personally talked to John three times. I made a personal call to [McCain aide] Mark Salter months ago asking that they look at this."
Translation: McCain's lying and full of shit! This may blow up into the MSM yet and really give the Heathers fits in how they'd explain McCain abandoning the Troop's GI Bill!
No doubt this is certainly a glaring chink in John McCain's Media Hoisted Armor. John McCain, war hero, bogged down in details about a New GI Bill, supported by GOP's Hagel and Warner. This is just the sort of issue that will knock McCain from his perch and it seems as if Webb won't pull any punches.
Webb's legislation offers benefits that are open to anyone that's served at least three months active duty since 9/11, and max out after 36 months. It's clearly aimed at the 84 percent of the armed forces that do not see the military as a career. What's more, Webb's bill doesn't distinguish between full-time soldiers and reserves -- one could argue that's only fair, since the reserves pretty much are full-time now. In any case, the beneficiaries of Webb's bill are a huge pool of working class, non-college educated potential voters who would no doubt appreciate the efforts to get them a degree and -- though Webb denies this is an intentional feature of the bill -- get them out of Iraq. Critics point out that the Webb bill offers a strong incentive to not re-enlist: "enhanced post-service education benefits, particularly if enacted while troops face multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, could trigger an exodus severe enough to put the viability of the volunteer military at risk."
The legislation supported by McCain, on the other hand, scales benefits, thus offering an incentive to stay. An alteration rather than a replacement of the current GI bill, it also continues to distinguish between reserve and active duty, and has a specific dollar limit on how much of the cost of education the government will cover (from $1500 for current active duty personnel to $2,000 per month for anyone whose served on active duty for 12 years or more). Webb's bill would cover "cover tuition for up to four years at a level to match tuition at the most expensive in-state public school," as well as making up the cost for any private college willing to provide a 50 percent scholarship.
In McCain's world, I guess there is a sliding scale of Hero's work.
In Webb's world, being a member of the military is a doorway to an education.
In McCain's world, you'll have to serve many tours and risk your life and your legacy countless months in order to get a few more bucks for books and tuition...
John McCain, Batshit Crazy as always. This is an issue that can be mined for serious gold in the General Election...
Means testing of sorts for a GI Bill... Sick, Just Fucking Sick. Quoting Webb: "He's so full of it!"
And in tangentially related news, MoveOn's new $1M ad Campaign starting in New Mexico and Iowa really rips McCain a new one, including Kos' favorite McCain/Bush Love Moment
Put aside for a moment the fact that McCain's bill would basically hold soldiers hostage inside the military the same way employees are held hostage at their jobs for health care benefits. Put aside that the goal of the McCain bill is not honoring the service of our veterans but making sure enough people are locked into the military to fight all the extra wars he wants to wage. And put aside that the current benefit levels, which McCain's bill seeks to for the most part freeze, are insufficient to the task of covering the cost of higher education.
This is McCain's shtick. He looks to control the stakes of bipartisanship and define it as "everyone agree with me," and he'll lie about your intentions if you dare to defy him. Webb's GI Bill has 57 co-sponsors, pressure is being applied (good on Alaska Senate candidate Mark Begich to trap Ted Stevens on this), and then McCain barrels in, offers his own competing measure and threatens to blow up the whole deal, all because he didn't come up with it himself in the first place.
Now, aren't those VALUES we could all use as a guide to making our choice in November? The fact that McCain puts his ego above the treatment of veterans is one thing, but the idea that he has no faithfulness to the truth and will take credit and impute bad motives at the drop of a hat, all in the name of receiving glory for himself - aren't those QUALITIES that we should consider when making a choice for President?
